Maryland

JOHN PAYNE is the man who became a Fox star but here he takes fourth place in the billing behind top-billed WALTER BRENNAN, who once again plays a crusty horse trainer at odds with Payne's mother, Fay Bainter. Bainter plays a woman whose husband was killed during a hunting ride and forbids her son to follow in his footsteps. Walter Brennan and Fay Bainter carry most of the movie and justify their top billing.

The plot is a slow-moving one that is purely routine but helped by some gorgeous technicolor photography. Brenda Joyce is the feminine love interest for Payne and Hattie McDaniel is the sassy servant once again stealing every scene she's in. The irrelevant comic subplot involving a black servant (Ben Carter) is tedious and comes across as padding to inject some humor into the proceedings.

The theme of a woman refusing to let her son ride because of a tragic accident in the past has been done many times before and here the presentation is standard, at best, amid sumptuous settings. Fay Bainter is convincing as the bitter and stubborn mother who refuses to let her son ride and John Payne does well enough in a sympathetic but underwritten role. Joyce can't do much with her pallid role as his romantic interest.

Summing up: notable only for its color photography and as an interesting showcase for the early promise of John Payne who was about to become a popular Fox star after this one.